he learned judge
in that case said: "This suit fails in its foundation. She (Grace) was
not a free person; no injury is done her by her continuance in
slavery, and she has no pretensions to any other station than that
which was enjoyed by every slave of a family. If she depends upon such
freedom conveyed by a mere residence in England, she complains of a
violation of right which she possessed no longer than whilst she
resided in England, but which totally expired when that residence
ceased, and she was imported into Antigua."

The decision of Lord Mansfield was, "that so high an act of dominion"
as the master exercises over his slave, in sending him abroad for
sale, could not be exercised in England under the American laws, and
contrary to the spirit of their own.

The decision of Lord Stowell is, that the authority of the English
laws terminated when the slave departed from England. That the laws of
England were not imported into Antigua, with the slave, upon her
return, and that the colonial forum had no warrant for applying a
foreign code to dissolve relations which had existed between persons
belonging to that island, and which were legal according to its own
system. There is no distinguishable difference between the case before
us and that determined in the admiralty of Great Britain.

The complaint here, in my opinion, amounts to this: that the judicial
tribunals of Missouri have not denounced as odious the Constitution
and laws under which they are organized, and have not superseded them
on their own private authority, for the purpose of applying the laws
of Illinois, or those passed by Congress for Minnesota, in their
stead. The eighth section of the act of Congress of the 6th of March,
1820, (3 Statutes at Large, 545,) entitled, "An act to authorize the
people of Missouri to form a State Government," &c., &c., is referred
to, as affording the authority to this court to pronounce the sentence
which the Supreme Court of Missouri felt themselves constrained to
refuse. That section of the act prohibits slavery in the district of
country west of the Mississippi, north of thirty-six degrees thirty
minutes north latitude, which belonged to the ancient province of
Louisiana, not included in Missouri.

It is a settled doctrine of this court, that the Federal Government
can exercise no power over the subject of slavery within the States,
nor control the intermigration of slaves, other than fugitives, among
the State